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James Boyle and Azhur Saleem Talk About The Marionette Unit

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10 years ago

April 26, 2016

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Filmmakers Reveal Who Is Pulling The Strings For New Original Graphic Novel

♦UK independent filmmakers James Boyle and Azhur Saleem have teamed up with acclaimed UK comic artist Warwick Johnson-Cadwell to bring their graphic novel The Marionette Unit to life. Tripwire caught up with them recently to find out more…

What was the genesis of The Marionette Unit?

The Marionette Unit has had quite a convoluted route to where we stand now. It’s had many false-starts in a number of mediums, but one thing that stayed together was the core idea and our tenacity to see the story from this world realised for audiences.

We originally had an idea to create a short film back in 2009 set in Victorian times about a ballet dancer who performs on stage hooked up to the titular machine. It’s about her escape off the stage in blistering fashion and would’ve been quite a cool little film. We had a short script that won a couple of awards and initial funding from the Vevey Images Arts Festival. We used that funding to shoot a teaser trailer that would help generate more funding via crowdfunding.

At the end of 2009 we had produced a pretty cool 2 minute trailer which you can check out here https://vimeo.com/38266318 which included concept artwork of how we saw the film.

The response we got from the trailer took us a little by surprise. We were featured on Twitch Film, io9, Ain’t It Cool News, amongst others and we got film companies and studios both here and the US calling. The main consensus we got was to forego the short film and write a feature script which would be easier to sell to financiers, especially as a new IP. So we spent nine months developing the idea and Azhur wrote a 120 page feature script that explored the world of The Marionette Unit through a father and son story of revenge and redemption.
The screenplay was great. But it was expensive. Especially for young filmmakers such as ourselves, so after deliberating we decided to shelve the idea for a while whilst we regrouped.

Despite us not actively working on the project for a couple of years, we kept hearing from fans asking when it was going to be made. Then in 2012 we figured the idea was too strong to let go, so Azhur wrote a new short film, now taking into account the feature he had written. We were beginning to create a solid timeline of events that picked on real-world accounts from history, but diverged into the science-fiction world we were creating. We began again in earnest to raise funding for this brand new short film and cutting a long story short, raising funds for an ambitious short film is a tall order in this economic climate.

But instead of giving up, we figured the story was too good to set aside and we pivoted to the graphic novel format. We always knew we wanted to tell side-stories in this medium whilst developing the feature, but now we decided that the best way to sell an untested IP idea was to create a built-in audience ourselves.

We raised funding to set up a publishing company, TMU Workshop that would create the graphic novel and we began in earnest to produce it last year.

What were the biggest influences on the series?

David Cronenberg’s eXistenZ was a big influence, Alan Moore’s From Hell, H. P. Lovecraft’s At The Mountains of Madness, Neil Gaiman’s Marvel 1602, and we’ve always loved the idea of juxtaposing science-fiction with Victorian London, after which we then discovered the Steampunk sub-genre and fell in love with it.

How has your and Azhur’s background as filmmakers helped to write this project?

Coming from film has proved very valuable in translating the story to the graphic novel medium—and an easy transition as both work primarily in telling visual stories. There’s a definite correlation with both industries as can be seen by the number of graphic novels that are adapted for the screen.

Scriptwriting by its nature requires concise writing and that gave us a very efficient roadmap when Azhur adapted it to the graphic novel. There were some aspects that didn’t translate so well though. Azhur had always imagined small nuances and moments in the film to be brought to life with actors’ performances. A single eyebrow raise or a minuscule sneer would translate huge amounts of emotion in a film, but it’s not as simple in illustrated form. You need to be bit more descriptive in how you convey that in still images.

We feel this efficient storytelling works well for our graphic novel and readers have responded positively to this.

One change that we love with graphic novels, compared to film, is the freedom given to imagination. We’re no longer restricted by physical production or film budgets so if we want 200 workers in a factory that’s easily done. This allowed Azhur to let the story breathe and expand more so than the original film short and it’s better for it. We can see more of the world and transport audiences into a fuller experience.

What is the one line elevator pitch for the comic?

Beatrice Shaw is searching for her missing sister, Melodie forcing her to infiltrate a hellish Victorian workhouse where steam-powered engines control workers’ bodies.

How did Warwick Johnson-Cadwell come on board?

Warwick was someone who we were aware of as fans of independent comics, we felt his art style would fit the tone and story perfectly. Azhur had come across Warwick’s work when he bought some of his work from the East End Comics Festival and loved his style. So when it came time to choosing the right artist, we felt that Warwick would be perfect for it. He has a really unique look which immediately stands out from a lot of other artists.

We were then introduced to him by Daniel Humphry at Offlife who agreed that it would be a great fit. As our debut release, first foray in publishing and coming from a film background, it took a little while to get into a working rhythm for production. But once we all settled in we found the process quite straight forward and looked forward to the end of the week immensely when new pages went up on the shared folder.

We’re so excited that he’s been a part of the process in realising this world.

How did the project change once Johnson-Cadwell joined?

The story didn’t change once Warwick was on board, but we liaised with him to get his opinion on wether the film story would work in the graphic novel form—this being our first foray into the publishing industry.

Warwick’s style definitely developed our view of the world we had so far been dreaming up in our heads. He took what was there and expanded and warped it to his fantastically twisted vision. His interpretation of the workhouse interior is something we were both so amazed by! We felt like Beatrice and the workers walking in for the first time and being awe-struck.

We wanted Warwick to also have onus on his creative input into the project so we gave him freedom to play around with ideas at the start and then we honed and shaped the visuals together.

How did Azhur and yourself collaborate? Was it a fifty-fifty collaboration?

The world of The Marionette Unit is something we’ve created together. Azhur wrote the scripts but only once we’d agreed on the direction it would take. Many story meetings in coffee shops across London has helped us to build a backstory that spans several decades with entire lives of the characters that are directly and indirectly involved with the machines at the centre of the story.

When it came to production, Azhur adapted the film script to the graphic novel script, detailing out the panels to Warwick. Meanwhile James took charge of day-to-day business development and marketing. This mimics our working style in our film work, Azhur being the writer/director and James the producer. We’re both creatively involved (and invested) but when the work comes we know how to specialise and play to our roles and strengths.

You have stated that your hope is that the comic will act as a springboard to be made into either film or TV. How has that dictated your approach to The Marionette Unit?

It’s more that the story has dictated our moves rather than the other way around. From the beginning we’ve remained very fluid with our approach as can be seen with the history of the project. The core has always been the idea and the world these characters live in, complete with the history and politics. We’ve had so much interest over the years and people continually asking us about where it’s going next that it pressed us to get it out into the world.

The graphic novel is definitely the first step and we’re planning several more volumes over the next few years. At the same time we’re building a pitch for a TV show. The episodic nature of our planned graphic novels fits much better to television than features and as everyone knows, TV is a much more welcoming place for new ideas. We feel we’d sit somewhere between Penny Dreadful, Peaky Blinders and Ripper Street with the political machinations of House of Cards. Visualising this on screen has always been our first love but we’re going to get to that at the right time.

The great thing about having been with this project for five years in various guises is the countless stories we’ve built up and all the main players in the wider story. The graphic novel is just a mere hint at what’s to come and we hope that our readers will follow us for every step.

With the influence of social media these days, do you think it is easier to get a project like this off the ground than it would have been a few years ago?

Social media is a bit of a double-edged sword we feel. It’s great at connecting to audiences we would never have thought of and seeing our project spread across the world. But conversely there’s a lot of noise out there and you have to expend a lot of energy shouting louder than everyone else.

When it comes to it, we think the majority of people still respond to traditional routes and we’re making sure we cover as many marketing bases as we can.

We’re slowly building our fanbase now on social media and one thing we’re looking forwards to is to start hearing back from our readers and letting us know what they think. The conversation you can have with people is, we believe, the best element of social media.

Whether it’s easier to get a project like this off the ground we couldn’t really answer truthfully as this is our first attempt at something like this. Film is a different beast and getting people to watch short films is one mountain, but so far with our graphic novel we’re having a positive response.